Minor/Repaint: Another movie Ironhide repaint. (pic heavy)

So my red movie Ironhide project was a great success until i tried transforming him. Thanks to the lame-ness that is acrylic paint the whole project was ruined. Such a shame as well because the bot mode looked awesome...

Oh well...it wasnt meant to be but i didnt want to just throw away the figure so i sand-blasted the red off. It left the plastic in a predictably rough condition but at least i could salvage it and give Ironhide back his black paint job.

This is the result. As you can see the paint is a tad rough in spots but considering what i had to work with he came out alright. This is just to let you know what condition the figure was in after i sand-blasted the red paint off.
From this:

To this:

"its an option"

"you feeling lucky, punk?!"

As you can see i went to town with the detailing, giving him an almost 100% accurate movie look. I reshaped his face to get rid of that ugly pig nose and make him look more appealing and more accurate to the hi-res cgi render. I also added longer smoke stacks, side steps and re-positioned the 4X4 logos on the rear fenders. On the factory toy these are in the wrong place so i fixed them. I also added a GMC badge to the rear tail gate.

The front wind screen looks like it is cracked and this wasnt intentional. For some reason the lacquer made the matte black paint that i had put on the wind sheild crack and i couldnt be bothered to fix it. I left the bumpers matte black as they are this color on the actual GMC Topkick used in the movie.

I wanted to add some detail to his cannons as well and get rid of the stupid missles the factory toy had. I whipped out my rotary tool and drilled out those suckas and filled in the holes and painted them. I added some bits of styrene and painted them black to try and make them look more accurate to the movie render, as well as add some copper piping for that extra bit of detail.

All in all he could have come out better with a factory toy as a base but considering how rough and on the edge of being thrown away the figure was after the red acrylic disaster i think he came out great.

Thanks for looking!

Heres a little preview of my next repaint:

(the lighting sucks but he is actually a movie-accurate matte silver with darker splotches on the wings.

too bad indeed, the red looked amazing, much better than I expected. I was wondering how red would look on the movie mold. Very nice job on the cannons as well. I'm anxious to see how you do with starscream.

It looks good in the black paint like that, the nice glossy shine works quite well on him like in the movie, but did you try to use rubbing alcohol on him to take the red paint off??? It ussually works very well to take acrylic paints off.

It looks good in the black paint like that, the nice glossy shine works quite well on him like in the movie, but did you try to use rubbing alcohol on him to take the red paint off??? It ussually works very well to take acrylic paints off.

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I have never been able to find a place in the UK that sells rubbing alcohol, so im thinking they dont sell it here. I did try using cellulose thinners however and if that didnt get it off (which it kinda did bit it was starting to damage the plastic) rubbing alcohol definately wouldnt. I tried using acrylic thinners too, and had very limited success with it.

The details are great, too bad the paint isn't as smooth as it could be, but it has an awesome looking bot mode!!

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Thanks. Yeah the surface you paint on is obviously going to effect how the paint looks, thats why it is super important to make sure the surface you paint on is as smooth as possible. So considering what i had to work with (which basically felt like a rhino's butt) it came out rather well.

Anyway the bot mode is what matters most as thats how i display all my figures hehe.

all you needed to do was some sanding work on the actual joints. That, and apply a clearcoat over all that red and silver paint. You should always give a clearcoat, and let it have a few days to get fully hardened.

all you needed to do was some sanding work on the actual joints. That, and apply a clearcoat over all that red and silver paint. You should always give a clearcoat, and let it have a few days to get fully hardened.

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I did all of that, it still chipped off. I sanded down loads of joints, gave it plenty of clearance, covered it in clear matte varnish to seal it and it still chipped off. It isnt just joints that was the problem, but sections where plastic clips together as well. Once a small bit chipped off the rest would follow as soon as you touched it. Acrylics just arent strong enough for this type of thing, they suck. Enemals FTW!

I did all of that, it still chipped off. I sanded down loads of joints, gave it plenty of clearance, covered it in clear matte varnish to seal it and it still chipped off. It isnt just joints that was the problem, but sections where plastic clips together as well. Once a small bit chipped off the rest would follow as soon as you touched it. Acrylics just arent strong enough for this type of thing, they suck. Enemals FTW!

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Just curious, how long did you wait for everything to dry and cure before transforming him? That could have had an affect on the final outcome. I always give parts some good time to cure before I put them back together. That way I know the clear coat has completely hardened, and is ready to be put back together, let alone transformed.

Just curious, how long did you wait for everything to dry and cure before transforming him? That could have had an affect on the final outcome. I always give parts some good time to cure before I put them back together. That way I know the clear coat has completely hardened, and is ready to be put back together, let alone transformed.

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The acrylic had already hardened as i applied it days before the clearcoat. I think i gave the clear coat a good few hours to cure, but like i said it wasnt just the clear that was chipping off it was anything acrylic based which had already been applied days before.

The acrylic had already hardened as i applied it days before the clearcoat. I think i gave the clear coat a good few hours to cure, but like i said it wasnt just the clear that was chipping off it was anything acrylic based which had already been applied days before.

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Personally, I give clearcoat at least a day before I do anything else to the parts. The only other piece of advice that I can think of to give you, would be to primer the parts before painting (not sure if that was a part of your process or not). I really like what you did with the cannons. I'd be more interested in getting him if they looked more like that to begin with, lol.